The producer of Cannes features Renoir and Plan 75 has outlined plans to go into production next year on Life Is Yours, the second feature of rising Japanese filmmaker Emma Kawawada.
Eiko Mizuno-Gray of Japan’s Loaded Films is at the Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF) this week with fellow producer Naoya Takahashi of Toei Company, meeting potential co-production partners and funding bodies.
“The story is set at a luxury ski resort in Japan, which has been taken over by a foreign company,” said Mizuno-Gray. “It centres on a Kimie, a widow in her 70s, who lost her land to these foreign hotel owners, which led to her husband’s suicide. She decides to take revenge by infiltrating the hotel as a cleaner. But when she starts bonding with the president of the foreign company, a surrogate mother-daughter relationship forms that makes her doubt her plan for revenge.”
Writer-director Kawawada was inspired by the sharp rise in tourism at such destinations in Japan, which were previously packed with local people but are now overrun by visitors from overseas – sparking a rise in prices that locals cannot afford.
It flips the perspective of Kawawada’s debut feature, My Small Land, in which a Kurdish family attempt to navigate life in Japan. In Life Is Yours, is the Japanese people who will be the minorities in their own land.
Takahashi, whose credits include Busan 2025 feature Dear Stranger, first began developing ideas with the filmmaker two years ago after being “moved and impressed” by My Small Land. Kawawada’s debut played in Generation at the Berlinale in 2022, receiving an Amnesty International special commendation.
Loaded Films boarded the project two months ago, having proven their success with Chie Hayakawa’s Plan 75 and Renoir, which played at Cannes (the latter in Competition) in 2022 and 2025 respectively. Plan 75 was also Japan’s Oscar entry in 2023.
Some 30% of the $1.2m (Y200m) budget has been raised and Loaded is attaching co-production partners to finance the remainder. These will include a partner from Asia, as the president of the overseas hotel owner will be portrayed by a non-Japanese woman in her 30s.
“One of our goals at HAF is to secure an Asian partner, perhaps from Hong Kong or Taiwan,” said Mizuno-Gray. “The film needs to be as authentic as possible and not just told from the Japanese point of view. It is similar to what we did with Plan 75, where we made sure to work with a Filippino partner to develop the Filippino character.”
Kawawada is finalising the script ahead of a planned start of production in March 2027.
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